geese

This week, our class got a little too close the pond than our protective Daddy Goose would have liked and he quickly let us know to find another way around with a perfectly-timed hiss or two. The students handled it well and slowly backed away to give the goose some extra space. Once we were a safe distance away, I explained that the geese have recently laid eggs on the island in the pond and are now very protective of their home and their growing babies. I continued by saying that the geese don’t know that we won’t hurt their babies and sometimes they get upset when we get too close to the pond. Then, one of our youngest students looked at me as said,

“Yeah and the goose probably doesn’t know that this is Winchester Thurston and we ‘think also of the comforts and the rights of others’ so we would never hurt their babies.”

It is certainly Spring. We’ve been keeping an eye on our feathered visitors for a few weeks now. The mother Canadian goose made her annual nest on the island situated within our pond. This Monday, we discovered that she had left her nest. We had to search around for a bit, but we finally found her!

Upon returning from our Spring Break, we noticed two new inhabitants near our pond.

We have been watching them from afar and are beginning to formulate questions about our new feathered friends. The goose above can be found sitting on the pond’s island, visible from the both the pond and fireplace decks. The other goose can frequently be found hanging out on our sled riding hill. We can easily observe the former from our Nature Playground.

This morning, we asked the children where they thought the geese might have been before arriving at our school

We had answers ranging from “Up north” to “Hawaii”. The children noticed that some of the ideas held connections. Many places were warmer than Pennsylvania and a few listed the same state. One of the students added that geese like to go where it is warm in the winter and referred to it as “hibernation.” This set other children on their toes, with their hands waving madly in the air. It took us a few tries, but eventually we figured out that it is actually called “migration” and that hibernation is something different.

Our new questions are:

Who hibernates? Who migrates?

We’ve asked the children to help us figure out where to find the information.